Axis: Bold As Love

“Axis is designed to show what we do besides my guitar playing, like the words and the drumming.  It’s nice to know people think about me, but don’t forget Mitch and Noel! Mitch particularly, has so much to contribute- ideas for other instruments and things for records.”- JH
“Our first LP we emphasized maybe the sustain notes and the really free scene, and then on this LP it’s quieter as far as guitar.  Maybe it might be dull to some people, but then we’re emphasizing the words and the drums.”- JH

Axis: Bold As Love was created between May 4 and October 30, 1967 at Olympic Studios with a four-track recorder. 
Chas Chandler produced and Eddie Kramer engineered for most of the tracks.
On October 31, 1967, JH, Chandler and Kramer do a marathon mixing session for the thirteen songs that would make up Axis.
JH took the masters, intending to take them home. He left one of the tape boxes (containing all of side 1) in a taxicab.
The album was scheduled for release, so Kramer, Chandler and JH re-mixed the first side in 13 hours. 
Axis: Bold As Love was released in England on Dec. 1, 1967. It entered the charts at #22 on Dec. 13 and remained for 16 weeks, peaking at #5. 

Axis: Bold As Love was released in the USA on January 15, 1968. The release was held up in the US to avoid conflict with Capitol Records’ December release of Get That Feeling, a collection of songs featuring Jimi backing Curtis Knight as a member of the Squires. In the U.S., Axis entered the charts a #140 and jumped to #24 in one week. When Axis peaked at #3 in the charts, AYE was still in the Top-20 after 31 weeks on the charts.

THE SONGS

side one
EXP
Up From the Skies
Spanish Castle Magic
Wait Until Tomorrow
Ain’t No Telling
Little Wing
If Six Was Nine

side two
You’ve Got Me Floating
Castles Made Of Sand
She’s So Fine
One Rainy Wish
Little Miss Lover
Bold As Love
 

EXP- Mitch plays the radio announcer.
 Paul Caruso- harmonica player and Jimi’s friend from the Village.

Up From the Skies

Spanish Castle Magic- Jimi offers a ride on his ‘dragonfly’. 

Recorded Oct. 27 and 28, 1967.  Small Faces release Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake in June 1968 (Highest UK chart position: 1, 19 weeks on chart). This concept (rock-opera?) album was released a year before the Who’s Tommy. 

Wait Until Tomorrow

Ain’t No Telling

Little Wing- glockenspiel by Jimi.  Jimi’s vocal is half-phased, and also run through a Leslie speaker.

“it’s based on a very, very simple Indian style… I got the idea like when we were at Monterey and I was looking at everything around.  So I figured I take everything I’d see around and put it maybe in the form of a girl, or something like that, you know, and call it Little Wing, and then it will just fly away.  Everybody’s really flying and they’re in a really nice mood, like the police, and everything was really, really great out there.  And so I just took all these things and put them in one very, very small matchbox, you know, into a girl and then do it.  It’s very simple, but I like it though…”

If 6 Was 9- pp. 45-46 in JH Sessions. ‘Noel has only tape, irons it, etc.’ Recorded “May 4 or 5, 1967”, with harmony vocals and foot stomps added by Noel, May 9. Jimi on guitars and wooden flute. Graham Nash, Michael Jeffery, and Gary Leeds (Walker Brothers drummer) on ‘foot stomping’. Used in the soundtrack for Easy Rider.

‘How could If 6 Was 9 be about anger? I don’t say nothing bad about nobody. It just says, man, let them go on and screw up theirs, just as long as they don’t mess with me. Quite naturally, you try to help people out there if they can appreciate it.’  JH New York, December 1969

You Got Me Floating

Castles Made of Sand

She’s So Fine- written by Noel Redding. 

One Rainy Wish

Little Miss Lover

Bold As Love- introduced stereo phasing as another component in Hendrix’s sound. Hendrix had been trying to describe an underwater sound that had come to him in a dream. George Chkiantz, an Olympic engineer, had been trying to create the sound in Studio B with the Small Faces. He came bursting into Studio A and said, “Come and listen to this!”  Everybody went in, including Hendrix to hear the sound Chkiantz had created. The song was Green Circles by the Small Faces. It wasn’t phasing, but it was the first big step. On the song Bold As Love, you can hear phasing just when Mitch’s drum kicks in at 2:46. The drums are also panned left to right. When Jimi’s guitar re-enters, it is heavily phased. Bold As Love was the first phasing achieved in stereo.